Four golfers struck by lightning north of Toronto, police say

Severe storm warning for southern Ontario

Peter Epstein and his buddies were waiting out an incoming storm under the verandah of Rolling Hills Golf Club in Stouffville when the siren telling golfers to get off the greens roared.

Laura Pedersen/National PostAn ambulance waits in the parking lot of the Rolling Hills Golf, where four golfers were struck by lightning

“The next thing you know, a few seconds later, there is flash, bang, all exactly at the same time,” said Mr. Epstein, a realtor who was participating in a tournament Tuesday. “So you knew there was a lightning strike very, very close.”

He heard a man call out for 911, and he thought, it couldn’t be serious. But it was — four golfers were taken to hospital after sustaining injuries consistent with a lightning strike. Constable Andy Pattenden said three of the victims are in stable condition, and one remains in critical.

Mr. Epstein, 52, was one of the first people on the scene of the strike, along with an ICU nurse who happened to be at the golf course.

Mr. Epstein said he saw three victims, two on the ground and a third kneeling, clearly disorientated. One man was face down on the fairway, his head resting on his arm and when Mr. Epstein and the nurse turned him over they found he wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse. “His eyes were wide open and completely glazed over. He was dead,” he said.

The nurse began to perform CPR on that patient and eventually regained a pulse, said Mr. Epstein, who tended to the other man on the ground, who was conscious and bleeding from his nose.

Rick Adams was part of the group that helped load the victims into the a pick up truck and bring them to the club house.

He was in the parking lot when the actual lighting hit. “It was a hell of a strike,” he said.

Mr. Epstein said the man who didn’t have vital signs at the outset was “definitely electrocuted.”

An ambulance waits in the parking lot of the Rolling Hills Golf, where four golfers were struck by lightning shortly before noon in Stouffville Ontario, on June 17, 2014. The victims were located behind the clubhouse of the golf course, near the 18th hole. Laura Pedersen/National Post

“He had burns on his hand where we believe he was holding on to the club. There were burns here on his groin it had melted his pants. And then once the paramedics were here and they cut away his pants there was evidence of a lot of burn and pin point burns as well on his lower abdomen,” said Mr. Epstein, who used to be on the ski patrol at Blue Mountain. “Then when I removed his shoes there was an exit on his right lower foot, near his ankle. As I was removing his shoe, all of the foam disappeared from the inside of his shoe. It had just completed melted. You saw that his sock was burned. And his hat was disintegrated.”

Police received the 911 call at 11:39 a.m. Superintendent Tim McMullin, with York Region EMS, said four transport units and two special response units responded. He said the first unit was on scene within 7 or 8 minutes. He said all patients were transported to MacKenzie Health.